Gender, social status, and the region in which a child lived determined how much schooling a child would receive and where and how they would get it. Children of the upper class were either taught in private schools or by a tutor. They were taught reading, writing, prayers, and simple math ("Education") . They were taught using repetition from the Bible, a religion-based reading supplement called a primer, and/or a paddle-shaped (also religious) horn book ("Schooling"). The upper-class boys were taught more advanced academic subjects, and may have been sent to boarding school in England or another state. The girls were taught to assume the duties of a wife and mother and obtained basic knowledge so they could read the Bible and record expenses ("Education").

and it remained an important institution for the education of women for more than sixty years.

Catherine Beecher believed that there was a need for a school for girls that would challenge their intellectual abilities. Hartford, Connecticut did not have such a school and Catherine was determined to start one. She opened the Hartford Female Seminary in May 1823

believed that women should devote themselves to the moral development and education of their children and to their home, and she felt that to accomplish this, women needed to be well educated.

intoduced the first legislation for free education

1843 to 1849 Barnard served as the state superintendent of schools in Rhode Island.

no nineteenth-century figure had such a profound and lasting impact on American education as Henry Barnard. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, on 24 January 1811, Barnard graduated from Yale College in 1835 and spent two years touring Europe, surveying the latest developments in education

acquired a reputation as one of the foremost educators in the nation

organized teachers’ institutes in twenty counties throughout the state.

.not until the 1840s did an organized system exist

Horace Mann

Henry Barnard

Second Great Awakening sparked an increase in denominational colleges, especially in the western states o             Some of these new schools accepted women

most prevailing incentive to labor was to secure the means of education for some male member of the family. To make a gentleman of a brother or a son, to give him a college education, was the dominant thought in the minds of a great many of the better class of mill­girls.

get the

Led by Horace Mann, the great educational reformer, a movement was led to create mandatory public education in America.